Hermit in Paris: Autobiographical Writings Book

This is excellent. The title of the book is an unusual and deceptive choice, Hermit In Paris is a very short piece, and not anywhere as interesting as American Diary 1959 -1960, which is superb, comprising half the book.

The thirteen page essay 'The Duce's Portraits' is worth the price of the book alone.
Calvino "spent the first twenty years of my life with Mussolini's face always in view, in the sense that his portrait was hung in every classroom, as well as in every public building or office."
The essay concentrates on only official images, "since no others circulated then: official images in portraits, statues, films made by his Luce Cinema Institute (the cinema newsreels of the time), illustrated newspapers."

"I don't know if that was the last time that Mussolini wore a top hat; it could have been, because by now, having secured the Church's consensus, he could start putting Italy into uniform. This shift in Fascist style ( at least as it might have been perceived in the provinces) I would date to the tenth anniversary of the Fascist revolution, 1932."

"Another necessary component was of course the prohibition of any criticism or sarcasm."

"Achilles Starace (1889 - 1945). Hard-line secretary of the Fascist party 1931-39, he was obsessed with external trappings such as Fascist uniforms, the Roman salute and the use of 'Voi' instead of 'Lei'. He was shot by partisans and his body was hung up alongside Mussolini's in Piazzale Loreto in Milan in April 1945."

Behind the Success
"It took me a long time to realize that what counts is not your intention but what you actually achieve."

Contents

Stranger in Turin
The Writer and the City
Questionnaire, 1956
American Diary 1959 - 1960
The Cloven Communism
Political Autobiography of a Young Man
A Letter in Two Versions
Objective Biographical Notice
Hermit in Paris
Where I Was on 25th April 1945
Dialect
The Situation in 1978
Was I a Stalinist Too?
The Summer of '56
The Duce's Portraits
Behind the Success
I Would Like to Be Mercutio . . .
My City Is New York
Interview with Maria Corti

I have to give him five stars for his honesty.
I have more to say on these various essays.

Hermit In Paris was a sweet find, for the cost of $3, an ex-library discard from a travellers bookshelf in the Tourist Information Office at Emerald, Queensland. The book was already on my TRL.